‘A #video recently made viral rounds on the Internet of a former policeman trying CBD oil as a last ditch effort to quell his volatile Parkinson’s symptoms.

Due to the progression of his Parkinson’s, Larry the former policeman cannot speak and absolutely cannot control his limbs or facial muscles. In under 3 minutes – just seconds, really – the transformation is nothing short of miraculous and will make believers of us all.

No sooner did this video get millions of views did we find out that the highly powerful CBD #oil was quietly #banned by the Drug Enforcement Agency! Can you believe that? CBD oil on Schedule 1 along with heroin and Bath Salts? Can you even stand it?

One wonders what a former policeman in need of this oil to function would think of such a ban on a compound that has incredible benefits but has never harmed a soul.’

‘A #video recently made viral rounds on the Internet of a former policeman trying CBD oil as a last ditch effort to quell his volatile Parkinson’s symptoms.

Due to the progression of his Parkinson’s, Larry the former policeman cannot speak and absolutely cannot control his limbs or facial muscles. In under 3 minutes – just seconds, really – the transformation is nothing short of miraculous and will make believers of us all.

No sooner did this video get millions of views did we find out that the highly powerful CBD #oil was quietly #banned by the Drug Enforcement Agency! Can you believe that? CBD oil on Schedule 1 along with heroin and Bath Salts? Can you even stand it?

One wonders what a former policeman in need of this oil to function would think of such a ban on a compound that has incredible benefits but has never harmed a soul.’

#Government has destroyed the ultimate, cleanest, and what should be an inexpensive industry compared to its partners in terms of initial costs: the #nuclear industry. From the very beginning, governments had #altered the course of the nuclear industry and its actual #potential to power the #US for an extremely low cost, while releasing an extremely small amount of #carbon-dioxide or any other types of harmful pollutants into the #air (which in turn fuels the extremely controversial #climateChange/global warming debate).

First, we must understand how governments had from the very #inception of nuclear energy, altered its course for government benefits. In the late 1930s, the power to harvest nuclear energy was discovered. However, its use would not initially be used for the greater good nuclear energy has the potential for. #Scientists all over the #SovietUnion, #NaziGermany, and the Western #Allies petitioned their governments to take up nuclear energy only so that they could produce #nuclearWeapons.

When large governments have the ability to wage #wars, and start what could be considered an #unproductive time period, many new #technologies and #innovations would be used for war, rather than for peaceful purposes. What if the #FederalReserve did not fuel the #stockmarket #crash of 1929, nor the #GreatDepression be prolonged, and what if the #WeimarRepublic, from its conception, did not suffer harsh economic burdens? Such large wars which had risen from government #interventions would most likely only result in much smaller wars between smaller nations rather than a full-on #WorldWar. The US would most likely not be the super power today, although it would be a strong #nation regardless (especially with its economy).

From this, what would the scientists who understood how nuclear energy works most likely do? If in #peace time, the most obvious answer was to try and find ways to fund their #research in order to produce #electricity. This would most probably go through large electric #companies, #universities, and other #private entities which would have the ability to get the right type of #funding, #equipment, and other essentials in order to harvest electricity via nuclear energy.

But what guarantees such projects would be carried out, especially that they would most probably cost a fortune to get up and running? #NikolaTesla did not receive a single government #grant when discovering how to use #AC to power homes; instead he …

#Government has destroyed the ultimate, cleanest, and what should be an inexpensive industry compared to its partners in terms of initial costs: the #nuclear industry. From the very beginning, governments had #altered the course of the nuclear industry and its actual #potential to power the #US for an extremely low cost, while releasing an extremely small amount of #carbon-dioxide or any other types of harmful pollutants into the #air (which in turn fuels the extremely controversial #climateChange/global warming debate).

First, we must understand how governments had from the very #inception of nuclear energy, altered its course for government benefits. In the late 1930s, the power to harvest nuclear energy was discovered. However, its use would not initially be used for the greater good nuclear energy has the potential for. #Scientists all over the #SovietUnion, #NaziGermany, and the Western #Allies petitioned their governments to take up nuclear energy only so that they could produce #nuclearWeapons.

When large governments have the ability to wage #wars, and start what could be considered an #unproductive time period, many new #technologies and #innovations would be used for war, rather than for peaceful purposes. What if the #FederalReserve did not fuel the #stockmarket #crash of 1929, nor the #GreatDepression be prolonged, and what if the #WeimarRepublic, from its conception, did not suffer harsh economic burdens? Such large wars which had risen from government #interventions would most likely only result in much smaller wars between smaller nations rather than a full-on #WorldWar. The US would most likely not be the super power today, although it would be a strong #nation regardless (especially with its economy).

From this, what would the scientists who understood how nuclear energy works most likely do? If in #peace time, the most obvious answer was to try and find ways to fund their #research in order to produce #electricity. This would most probably go through large electric #companies, #universities, and other #private entities which would have the ability to get the right type of #funding, #equipment, and other essentials in order to harvest electricity via nuclear energy.

But what guarantees such projects would be carried out, especially that they would most probably cost a fortune to get up and running? #NikolaTesla did not receive a single government #grant when discovering how to use #AC to power homes; instead he …

The Keynesian Endpoint

The Keynesian endpoint is when the entirety of government tax revenues has to be used for paying interest on the public debt. At this point a sovereign feels compelled to monetize an exponentially increasing debt load and/or default.

Petition

We support #Wallonia and its prime minister Paul #Magnette #for courageously standing up against CETA.

We ask you to stop bullying Wallonia and the #Brussels region for their #democratic decision to oppose CETA. The EU-Canada trade deal must be completely renegotiated to remove any special rights for #corporations -- at the minimum.

Petition

We support #Wallonia and its prime minister Paul #Magnette #for courageously standing up against CETA.

We ask you to stop bullying Wallonia and the #Brussels region for their #democratic decision to oppose CETA. The EU-Canada trade deal must be completely renegotiated to remove any special rights for #corporations -- at the minimum.

#TISA, the 'secret privatisation pact that poses a threat to #democracy'

“It will remove large sections of national #sovereignty and the ability of any #government, including the #UK Government, to regulate important #service sectors [on issues] such as #energy, such as #transport, such as #privacy. The Trade in Services Agreement is part of a radical project to limit governments’ sovereign right to regulate and freeze it almost in permanence in the interests of foreign #corporations.”

An international trade deal being negotiated in secret is a “turbo-charged privatisation pact” that poses a threat to democratic sovereignty and “the very concept of public services”, campaigners have warned.

Forbes:

Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate over the previous 65 million years (see Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School).

Since 2000, 6 million hectares of primary forest have been lost each year. That’s 14,826,322 acres, or just less than the entire state of West Virginia (see the 2010 assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN).

Even in the U.S., 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. For children under the age of 18, that number increases to 20% (see U.S. Census).

The Defense Department is always asking for more money, and given the responsibility the Pentagon has in keeping the world’s premier beacon of freedom and democracy secure, that’s understandable. It’s a big task.

But before lawmakers appropriate another dime to the DoD, it must first get some ans

security alert: modern cpus from intel and amd have an build-in backdoor

Modern cpus from intel and amd have build-in co-processors, which run besides the operating system and the code is proprietary. So even if you are running gnu/linux, it can leak your private keys! For more details, read on: (and don´t forget to #share this post, thanks)

It is extremely unlikely that any post-2008 Intel hardware will ever be supported in libreboot, due to severe security and freedom issues; so severe, that the libreboot project recommends avoiding all modern Intel hardware. If you have an Intel based system affected by the problems described below, then you should get rid of it as soon as possible. The main issues are as follows:

Introduced in June 2006 in Intel's 965 Express Chipset Family of (Graphics and) Memory Controller Hubs, or (G)MCHs, and the ICH8 I/O Controller Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip. In Q3 2009, the first generation of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 (Nehalem) CPUs and the 5 Series Chipset family of Platform Controller Hubs, or PCHs, brought a more tightly integrated ME (now at version 6.0) inside the PCH chip, which itself replaced the ICH. Thus, the ME is present on all Intel desktop, mobile (laptop), and server systems since mid 2006.

The ME consists of an ARC processor core (replaced with other processor cores in later generations of the ME), code and data caches, a timer, and a secure internal bus to which additional devices are connected, including a cryptography engine, internal ROM and RAM, memory controllers, and a direct memory access (DMA) engine to access the host operating system's memory as well as to reserve a region of protected external memory to supplement the ME's limited internal RAM. The ME also has network access with its own MAC address through an Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller. Its boot program, stored on the internal ROM, loads a firmware "manifest" from the PC's SPI flash chip. This manifest is signed with a strong cryptographic key, which differs between versions of the ME firmware. If the manifest isn't signed by a specific Intel key, the boot ROM won't load and execute the firmware and the ME processor core will be halted.

The ME firmware is compressed and consists of modules that are listed in the manifest along with secure cryptographic hashes of their contents. One module is the operating system kernel, which is based on a proprietary real-time operating system (RTOS) kernel called "ThreadX". The developer, Express Logic, sells licenses and source code for ThreadX. Customers such as Intel are forbidden from disclosing or sublicensing the ThreadX source code. Another module is the Dynamic Application Loader (DAL), which consists of a Java virtual machine and set of preinstalled Java classes for cryptography, secure storage, etc. The DAL module can load and execute additional ME modules from the PC's HDD or SSD. The ME firmware also includes a number of native application modules within its flash memory space, including Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), an implementation of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Intel Boot Guard, and audio and video DRM systems.

The Active Management Technology (AMT) application, part of the Intel "vPro" brand, is a Web server and application code that enables remote users to power on, power off, view information about, and otherwise manage the PC. It can be used remotely even while the PC is powered off (via Wake-on-Lan). Traffic is encrypted using SSL/TLS libraries, but recall that all of the major SSL/TLS implementations have had highly publicized vulnerabilities. The AMT application itself has known vulnerabilities, which have been exploited to develop rootkits and keyloggers and covertly gain encrypted access to the management features of a PC. Remember that the ME has full access to the PC's RAM. This means that an attacker exploiting any of these vulnerabilities may gain access to everything on the PC as it runs: all open files, all running applications, all keys pressed, and more.

Intel Boot Guard is an ME application introduced in Q2 2013 with ME firmware version 9.0 on 4th Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 (Haswell) CPUs. It allows a PC OEM to generate an asymmetric cryptographic keypair, install the public key in the CPU, and prevent the CPU from executing boot firmware that isn't signed with their private key. This means that coreboot and libreboot are impossible to port to such PCs, without the OEM's private signing key. Note that systems assembled from separately purchased mainboard and CPU parts are unaffected, since the vendor of the mainboard (on which the boot firmware is stored) can't possibly affect the public key stored on the CPU.

ME firmware versions 4.0 and later (Intel 4 Series and later chipsets) include an ME application for audio and video DRM called "Protected Audio Video Path" (PAVP). The ME receives from the host operating system an encrypted media stream and encrypted key, decrypts the key, and sends the encrypted media decrypted key to the GPU, which then decrypts the media. PAVP is also used by another ME application to draw an authentication PIN pad directly onto the screen. In this usage, the PAVP application directly controls the graphics that appear on the PC's screen in a way that the host OS cannot detect. ME firmware version 7.0 on PCHs with 2nd Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 (Sandy Bridge) CPUs replaces PAVP with a similar DRM application called "Intel Insider". Like the AMT application, these DRM applications, which in themselves are defective by design, demonstrate the omnipotent capabilities of the ME: this hardware and its proprietary firmware can access and control everything that is in RAM and even everything that is shown on the screen.

The Intel Management Engine with its proprietary firmware has complete access to and control over the PC: it can power on or shut down the PC, read all open files, examine all running applications, track all keys pressed and mouse movements, and even capture or display images on the screen. And it has a network interface that is demonstrably insecure, which can allow an attacker on the network to inject rootkits that completely compromise the PC and can report to the attacker all activities performed on the PC. It is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy that can't be ignored.

Before version 6.0 (that is, on systems from 2008/2009 and earlier), the ME can be disabled by setting a couple of values in the SPI flash memory. The ME firmware can then be removed entirely from the flash memory space. libreboot does this on the Intel 4 Series systems that it supports, such as the Libreboot X200 and Libreboot T400. ME firmware versions 6.0 and later, which are found on all systems with an Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPU and a PCH, include "ME Ingition" firmware that performs some hardware initialization and power management. If the ME's boot ROM does not find in the SPI flash memory an ME firmware manifest with a valid Intel signature, the whole PC will shut down after 30 minutes.

Due to the signature verification, developing free replacement firmware for the ME is basically impossible. The only entity capable of replacing the ME firmware is Intel. As previously stated, the ME firmware includes proprietary code licensed from third parties, so Intel couldn't release the source code even if they wanted to. And even if they developed completely new ME firmware without third-party proprietary code and released its source code, the ME's boot ROM would reject any modified firmware that isn't signed by Intel. Thus, the ME firmware is both hopelessly proprietary and "tivoized".

In summary, the Intel Management Engine and its applications are a backdoor with total access to and control over the rest of the PC. The ME is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy, and the libreboot project strongly recommends avoiding it entirely. Since recent versions of it can't be removed, this means avoiding all recent generations of Intel hardware.

On all recent Intel systems, coreboot support has revolved around integrating a blob (for each system) called the FSP (firmware support package), which handles all of the hardware initialization, including memory and CPU initialization. Reverse engineering and replacing this blob is almost impossible, due to how complex it is. Even for the most skilled developer, it would take years to replace. Intel distributes this blob to firmware developers, without source.

Since the FSP is responsible for the early hardware initialization, that means it also handles SMM (System Management Mode). This is a special mode that operates below the operating system level. It's possible that rootkits could be implemented there, which could perform a number of attacks on the user (the list is endless). Any Intel system that has the proprietary FSP blob cannot be trusted at all. In fact, several SMM rootkits have been demonstrated in the wild (use a search engine to find them).

All modern x86 CPUs (from Intel and AMD) use what is called microcode. CPUs are extremely complex, and difficult to get right, so the circuitry is designed in a very generic way, where only basic instructions are handled in hardware. Most of the instruction set is implemented using microcode, which is low-level software running inside the CPU that can specify how the circuitry is to be used, for each instruction. The built-in microcode is part of the hardware, and read-only. Both the circuitry and the microcode can have bugs, which could cause reliability issues.

Microcode updates are proprietary blobs, uploaded to the CPU at boot time, which patches the built-in microcode and disables buggy parts of the CPU to improve reliability. In the past, these updates were handled by the operating system kernel, but on all recent systems it is the boot firmware that must perform this task. Coreboot does distribute microcode updates for Intel and AMD CPUs, but libreboot cannot, because the whole point of libreboot is to be 100% free software.

On some older Intel CPUs, it is possible to exclude the microcode updates and not have any reliability issues in practise. All current libreboot systems work without microcode updates (otherwise, they wouldn't be supported in libreboot). However, all modern Intel CPUs require the microcode updates, otherwise the system will not boot at all, or it will be extremely unstable (memory corruption, for example).

Intel CPU microcode updates are signed, which means that you could not even run a modified version, even if you had the source code. If you try to upload your own modified updates, the CPU will reject them. In other words, the microcode updates are tivoized.

The microcode updates alter the way instructions behave on the CPU. That means they affect the way the CPU works, in a very fundamental way. That makes it software. The updates are proprietary, and are software, so we exclude them from libreboot. The microcode built into the CPU already is not so much of an issue, since we can't change it anyway (it's read-only).

For years, coreboot has been struggling against Intel. Intel has been shown to be extremely uncooperative in general. Many coreboot developers, and companies, have tried to get Intel to cooperate; namely, releasing source code for the firmware components. Even Google, which sells millions of chromebooks (coreboot preinstalled) have been unable to persuade them.

Even when Intel does cooperate, they still don't provide source code. They might provide limited information (datasheets) under strict corporate NDA (non-disclosure agreement), but even that is not guaranteed. Even ODMs and IBVs can't get source code from Intel, in most cases (they will just integrate the blobs that Intel provides).

Intel is only going to get worse when it comes to user freedom. Libreboot has no support recent Intel platforms, precisely because of the problems described above. The only way to solve this is to get Intel to change their policies and to be more friendly to the free software community. Reverse engineering won't solve anything long-term, unfortunately, but we need to keep doing it anyway. Moving forward, Intel hardware is a non-option unless a radical change happens within Intel.

Basically, all Intel hardware from year 2010 and beyond will never be supported by libreboot. The libreboot project is actively ignoring all modern Intel hardware at this point, and focusing on alternative platforms.

It is extremely unlikely that any post-2013 AMD hardware will ever be supported in libreboot, due to severe security and freedom issues; so severe, that the libreboot project recommends avoiding all modern AMD hardware. If you have an AMD based system affected by the problems described below, then you should get rid of it as soon as possible. The main issues are as follows:

This is basically AMD's own version of the Intel Management Engine. It has all of the same basic security and freedom issues, although the implementation is wildly different.

The Platform Security Processor (PSP) is built in on all Family 16h + systems (basically anything post-2013), and controls the main x86 core startup. PSP firmware is cryptographically signed with a strong key similar to the Intel ME. If the PSP firmware is not present, or if the AMD signing key is not present, the x86 cores will not be released from reset, rendering the system inoperable.

The PSP is an ARM core with TrustZone technology, built onto the main CPU die. As such, it has the ability to hide its own program code, scratch RAM, and any data it may have taken and stored from the lesser-privileged x86 system RAM (kernel encryption keys, login data, browsing history, keystrokes, who knows!). To make matters worse, the PSP theoretically has access to the entire system memory space (AMD either will not or cannot deny this, and it would seem to be required to allow the DRM "features" to work as intended), which means that it has at minimum MMIO-based access to the network controllers and any other PCI/PCIe peripherals installed on the system.

In theory any malicious entity with access to the AMD signing key would be able to install persistent malware that could not be eradicated without an external flasher and a known good PSP image. Furthermore, multiple security vulnerabilities have been demonstrated in AMD firmware in the past, and there is every reason to assume one or more zero day vulnerabilities are lurking in the PSP firmware. Given the extreme privilege level (ring -2 or ring -3) of the PSP, said vulnerabilities would have the ability to remotely monitor and control any PSP enabled machine. completely outside of the user's knowledge.

Much like with the Intel Boot Guard (an application of the Intel Management Engine), AMD's PSP can also act as a tyrant by checking signatures on any boot firmware that you flash, making replacement boot firmware (e.g. libreboot, coreboot) impossible on some boards. Early anecdotal reports indicate that AMD's boot guard counterpart will be used on most OEM hardware, disabled only on so-called "enthusiast" CPUs.

Handles some power management for PCIe devices (without this, your laptop will not work properly) and several other power management related features.

The firmware is signed, although on older AMD hardware it is a symmetric key, which means that with access to the key (if leaked) you could sign your own modified version and run it. Rudolf Marek (coreboot hacker) found out how to extract this key in this video demonstration, and based on this work, Damien Zammit (another coreboot hacker) partially replaced it with free firmware, but on the relevant system (ASUS F2A85-M) there were still other blobs present (Video BIOS, and others) preventing the hardware from being supported in libreboot.

This is responsible for virtually all core hardware initialization on modern AMD systems. In 2011, AMD started cooperating with the coreboot project, releasing this as source code under a free license. In 2014, they stopped releasing source code and started releasing AGESA as binary blobs instead. This makes AGESA now equivalent to Intel FSP.

Read the Intel section #microcode. AMD's updates are practically the same, though it was found with much later hardware in AMD that you could run without microcode updates. It's unknown whether the updates are needed on all AMD boards (depends on CPU).

AMD seemed like it was on the right track in 2011 when it started cooperating with and releasing source code for several critical components to the coreboot project. It was not to be. For so-called economic reasons, they decided that it was not worth the time to invest in the coreboot project anymore.

For a company to go from being so good, to so bad, in just 3 years, shows that something is seriously wrong with AMD. Like Intel, they do not deserve your money.

Given the current state of Intel hardware with the Management Engine, it is our opinion that all performant x86 hardware newer than the AMD Family 15h CPUs (on AMD's side) or anything post-2009 on Intel's side is defective by design and cannot safely be used to store, transmit, or process sensitive data. Sensitive data is any data in which a data breach would cause significant economic harm to the entity which created or was responsible for storing said data, so this would include banks, credit card companies, or retailers (customer account records), in addition to the "usual" engineering and software development firms. This also affects whistleblowers, or anyone who needs actual privacy and security.

“It would be fatal if citizens got the impression that cash is gradually taken away from them.” -- Bundesbank President Weidman.

"In Germany, such measures clash with deeply engrained habits and #social attitudes. According to a recent Bundesbank study, 79% of payments in #Germany are made in cash – compared with only 48% in #Britain. Even among 14- to 24-year-olds, two-thirds say they prefer paying in cash to electronic means. In a YouGov survey, 72% of Germans said they considered it safer to pay in cash."

“We don’t want someone to be able to track digitally what we buy, eat and drink, what books we read and what movies we watch,” Mahrer said on Austrian #public #radio station Oe1. “We will fight everywhere against rules” including caps on cash purchases, he said.

"Meanwhile, in tech-obsessed #Japan, the country that first popularized mobile wallets and smartphones, cash is king. It is offered and excepted reverentially even when paying for groceries. Every ¥10,000-note is treated with utmost care. As a rule, they’re pristine. Demand for cash remains solid, to the increasing consternation of global credit card companies. In a 2013 report, MasterCard estimated that 38% of the total value of the country’s retail transactions were in cash. That’s almost twice the rate in the U.S. and five times the rate in #France."

"The #government has told taxpayers that they will have to spend up to a certain amount of their incomes via bank and card transactions in order to qualify for an annual tax-free exemption."

"Greek businesses are not ready for the expansion of #plastic #money through the compulsory use of credit and debit cards for everyday transactions....an estimated half of all businesses do not have card terminals. "

In the United States Cash Continues to Play a Key Role in Consumer Spending: Evidence from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice

"Evidence from the Diary of #Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC), conducted in October 2012 by the Boston, Richmond, and San Francisco Federal Reserve Banks suggests otherwise. Not only is cash a very different payment instrument than checks, but consumers choose to use cash more frequently than any other #payment instrument, including debit or credit cards. Cash plays a dominant role for small-value transactions, is the leading payment instrument for many types of purchases, and stands as the key alternative when other options are not available."

"In October 2012, the average American consumer had 59 transactions, including purchases and bill payments, and 23 of these 59 payments involved cash."

12 Futuristic Forms of Government -- Which one would you prefer?

As history has repeatedly shown, political systems come and go. Given our rapid technological and social advances, it's a trend we can expect to continue. Here are 12 extraordinary  and even frightening &#151; ways our governments could be run in the future.

1. Noocracy

Similar to Plato's "government of the wise," a noocracy would be, in the words of "biosphere" popularizer Vladimir Vernadsky, "a social and political system based on the priority of the human mind." [...]

2. Cyberocracy

In a cyberocracy, governments, or governmental institutions, would rule by the effective use of information. [...]

3. An AI Singleton

But once an artificial intelligence becomes sophisticated and powerful enough, it could set itself up as a Singleton &#151; a hypothetical world order in which there is a single decision-making agency (or entity) at the highest level of control. [...]

4. Democratic World Government

We may very well be on our way to achieving the Star Trek-like vision of a global-scale liberal democracy &#151; one capable of ending nuclear proliferation, ensuring global security, intervening to end genocide, defending human rights, and putting a stop to human-caused climate change. [...]

5. The Polystate

But if one overarching global system is not to your liking, you can always go non-local. [...]

6. Futarchy

[...] "Market speculators would set prices that estimate national welfare conditional on adopting proposed policies. When the market estimate of welfare conditional on adopting a policy is higher than the estimate conditional on non-adoption, that proposal becomes law."

7. Delegative Democracy

Also known as liquid democracy, it's described by Bryan Ford as a new paradigm for democratic organization where individual vote transfers, or delegation, is emphasized over mass election. In such a system, voting power is vested in delegates rather than representatives. [...]

8. Seasteading

For those of you looking to escape into international waters, there's always seasteading to consider &#151; modular, autonomous, voluntary city-states. They could take on the form of abandoned ocean liners or anything else that floats. [...]

9. Gerontocracy

As people live increasingly longer, and as we gradually phase into the era of radical life extension, there's the distinct possibility that the aged will hold on to their wealth and power. [...]

10. Demarchy

Coined by Australian philosopher John Burnheim, a demarchy, or lottocracy, is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected from a pool of eligible citizens. [...]

11. A Dark Enlightenment

If a band of wingnut anarcho-capitalists get their way, we'll take one step forward by overthrowing liberal democracy &#151; and then take two steps back by re-instating a monarchist or authoritarian system. The ringleader of this neoreactionary movement, or dark enlightenment as its called, is Mencius Moldbug. [...]

12. Post-Apocalyptic Hunter-Gatherers

Speaking of regression, there's also the possibility that some kind of catastrophic event will force us to revert to paleolithic politics. [...]

25 Facts About the Federal Reserve

Unelected, unaccountable central planners from a private central #bank run our financial #system and manage our #economy. There is a reason why financial markets respond with a yawn when Barack #Obama says something about the economy, but they swing wildly whenever Federal Reserve Chairman Ben #Bernanke opens his mouth. The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does by a huge margin. The Fed is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and if the American people truly understood how it really works, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. The following are 25 fast facts about the #FederalReserve that everyone should know…

Even using the official numbers, the value of the U.S. #dollar has declined by more than 95 percent since the Federal Reserve was created nearly 100 years ago.

The secret November 1910 gathering at Jekyll Island, Georgia during which the plan for the Federal Reserve was hatched was attended by U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and a whole host of representatives from the upper crust of the #WallStreet banking establishment.

In 1913, Congress was promised that if the Federal Reserve Act was passed that it would eliminate the business cycle.

The following comes directly from the Fed’s official mission statement: “To provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in #banking and the #economy has expanded.”

It was not an accident that a permanent income tax was also introduced the same year when the Federal Reserve system was established. The whole idea was to transfer wealth from our pockets to the federal government and from the federal #government to the #bankers.

Within 20 years of the creation of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy was plunged into the #GreatDepression.

According to an official government report, the Federal Reserve made 16.1 trillion dollars in secret #loans to the big banks during the last financial #crisis. The following is a list of loan recipients that was taken directly from page 131 of the report…

The Federal Reserve also paid those big banks $659.4 million in fees to help “administer” those secret loans.

The Federal Reserve has created approximately 2.75 trillion dollars out of thin air and injected it into the financial system over the past five years. This has allowed the #stockmarket to soar to unprecedented heights, but it has also caused our financial system to become extremely unstable.

Quantitative easing overwhelming benefits those that own stocks and other financial investments. In other words, quantitative easing overwhelmingly favors the very wealthy. Even Barack Obama has admitted that 95 percent of the income gains since he has been president have gone to the top one percent of income earners.

The gap between the top one percent and the rest of the country is now the greatest that it has been since the 1920s.

The Federal Reserve has argued vehemently in federal court that it is “not an agency” of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The Federal Reserve system greatly favors the biggest banks. Back in 1970, the five largest U.S. banks held 17 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. Today, the five largest U.S. banks hold 52 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets.

The Federal Reserve was designed to be a perpetual debt machine. The bankers that designed it intended to trap the U.S. government in a perpetual #debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape. Since the Federal Reserve was established nearly 100 years ago, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger.

If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt rises to just 6 percent (and it has been much higher than that in the past), we will be paying out more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt.

According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin #Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. So exactly why is the Federal Reserve doing it?

There are plenty of possible alternative financial systems, but at this point all 187 nations that belong to the #IMF have a #centralbank. Are we supposed to believe that this is just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?